Historic first as Wicklow secure All-Ireland title
FOR the first time ever County Wicklow had won the All-Ireland Senior football semi-final. The crowds had scattered around all the pubs of Wicklow in such excitement that they won.
Up next was the Senior football All-Ireland final. They had only two weeks to train for the final, so straight away they got to training, going to the gym three times a day, morning, noon and night. They were lifting weights, doing press ups and even sit ups.
Then it was finally the day. They were all nerved up for what was going to be their best day of their lives in Croke Park. It was a full stadium with over 50 per cent of the people there Wicklow fans from all over the country! They were playing against Dublin, their neighbouring county. The Dubs have five in a row, so it’s going to be a tough match for Wicklow.
At half-time the score was Wicklow 2-10, Dublin 1-9. This was a very nerve-wrecking score.
Mark Jackson saved three goals from the Dublin’s Brian Howard. Christopher O’Brien scored two goals for Wicklow and Ross O’Brien scored three points. Darren Hayden scored four points and Mikey O’Connor scored three points.
For Dublin, Brian Howard scored one goal and Eric Lowndes scored three points and Diarmuid Connolly scored four fantastic points while Ciaran Kilkenny scored two points.
On the Wicklow team nobody got injured and on the Dublin team Brian Fenton got injured and he broke his ankle.
In the second half Wicklow won and the only score change was the two points that the Dublin player Cormac Costello scored. It was a very close game but an excellent performance from the Wicklow team. They won the Senior football All-Ireland final for the first time in history.
The town of Wicklow was full of excitement, you couldn’t move anywhere without knocking someone over.
The Wicklow supporters at the match were trying to burst out onto the pitch even though in Croke Park you can’t do that but because so many people wanted to go out and meet the team after winning, they all decided to keeping trying until they knocked over some guards and as a result a lot of people were on the pitch.
The short-term manager Davy Burke decided to buy about 20 tubs of Supermacs chips for anybody that went to the homecomings.
At the homecomings they stopped at the majority of the clubs some including An Tóchar GAA, Bray Emmets GAA, Éire Óg Greystones GAA, Kilcoole GAA and Laragh GAA.
A few weeks later after everything had calmed down they went around and visited a lot of the schools. Everyone was wearing blue and yellow and it was amazing, you could see the colours a mile away! You could hear them cheering and celebrating when they came around to the clubs, some people even complained that they couldn’t sleep because they were celebrating all night!